The HappyHap Project
We blog about projects that amaze us and share the "HappyHap spirit"; i.e. spread happiness and make a positive difference in the world. We also post videos that are likely to make you smile and once in a while a mindful quote. It's a constantly evolving wall of inspiration and a tool-kit to make happiness happen everywhere!
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Chris Castro, FL
1. What do you do to rock your block? What organization (if any) do you work for? What does your day to day look like?
Over the... -
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At first glance it may appear too hard. Look again always.
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“By believing passionately in something that does not yet exist, we create it.”
– Nikos Kazantzakis -
“Who, what, when, where, & why” of LIFE
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Tag Results
11 posts tagged TED
THE STORY OF GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS
TEDxNewHaven took place on April 28th on the topic of „The Art and Science of Happiness.“ Nima Tshering, an engineer by training, a public servant by profession, and a “servant leader” by passion, was the first speaker at the conference.
Before coming to Harvard, Nima worked as an assistant to the King of Bhutan at the Office for People’s Welfare and Wellbeing, serving the poorest of the poor at their doorsteps.
One day, he met a destitute woman named Aum Demola in a remote village in Bhutan. “Her most prized asset was her leftover meal from the previous night that she kept under lock in a wooden box in her bamboo hut,” says Nima. “She had the key around her neck.”
Tears well in Nima’s eyes as he recalls. “This experience taught me the real meaning of you don’t know where your next meal is coming from. It shook my conscience. It gave me a calling.” He spent the next three years walking to more than 300 remote villages in Bhutan, helping thousands like her.
Nima believes that you can change the world better when you truly lead with empathy. “Happiness is being human first,” Nima smiles.
Take a look at his TEDx talk, in which he tells the story of Gross National Happiness. Learn about the philosophical concept behind GNH, its history and its meaning for the Bhutanese society at large.
Beautiful mural at TEDxNewHaven on “The Art and Science of Happiness” designed by illustrators Justin Gabbard and Andre Da Loba!
TEDx CONFERENCE ON “THE ART AND SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS”
In April, The HappyHap Project will be participating in TEDxNewHaven, a conference exploring “The Art and Science of Happiness.” The day-long event at Yale University will bring together leaders in positive psychology, entrepreneurship, education, politics, media, culture, technology and art to consider happiness in all its forms.
Happiness is a universally shared value and a subject of study across a variety of fields. TED conferences’ commitment to presenting “ideas worth spreading” makes happiness the perfect subject.
HappyHap founder Sunnie Tölle is working with Mario Chamorro to organize TEDxNewHaven. Mario founded the Happy Post Project, a collective art initiative that spreads happiness to fuel positive social change. People from all walks of life answer a simple question: “What makes you happy?” With a Post-it as their canvas, people write down and draw their idea of happiness. We blogged about the project last year and could not be more excited about their collaboration!
Together, they’ve worked to create an event that is sure to inspire and spread happiness in New Haven and beyond.
This conference won’t just be about speakers telling their ideas to the audience. Attendees will also have a chance to share their own ideas for creating a happier world, as part of a special digital project which will be announced at the conference.
You can apply online to attend TEDxNewHaven, which takes place on April 28 at Yale University in the Sudler Hall auditorium.
GRATITUDE AND HAPPINESS
Louie Schwartzberg is an award-winning cinematographer, director, and producer whose notable career spans more than three decades providing breathtaking imagery for feature films, television shows, documentaries and commercials.
This piece includes his short film on Gratitude and Happiness. Brother David Steindl-Rast’s spoken words, Gary Malkin’s musical compositions and Louie’s cinematography make this a stunningly beautiful piece, reminding us of the precious gift of life, and the beauty all around us.
TURNING THE WORLD INSIDE OUT
Can art change the world? Last March JR, the internationally active French street artist, was awarded the TED Prize and as part of the award ceremony shared an audacious wish with the public: “I wish for you to stand up for what you care about by participating in a global art project and together we’ll turn the world…INSIDE OUT.”
Since then, he’s launched the INSIDEOUT Project, a global art project coordinated through a website on which anyone can upload a digital image of himself, tell the world about what he stands for and have his portrait made into a large-scale black and white poster. This poster is printed and sent back to you and can be placed anywhere, from a solitary image in an office window to a wall of portraits on an abandoned building or a full stadium.
A recent, great example of how INSIDEOUT is making a positive difference is the transformative group action that recently took place in Cape Town, South Africa. High school students from Hangberg’s Cape Coloured community were paired with learners from the Imizamo Yethu’s Xhosa (Black African) community. Although they attend the same school and their communities are neighboring, racism between the two sides is rampant. Instructed by the notable South African photographers Hasan and Husain, they took each other’s portraits to participate in the INSIDEOUT Project. The week leading up to Mandela Day, they posted their portraits on each others’ homes and in each others’ communities to showcase the beauty and shared values they found in their new friends. In addition, large-scale versions of the portraits were created by JR and pasted throughout various communities in Cape Town.
So, can art change the world? As the South African example suggests, it can definitely make a positive difference. Whether this positive difference is enough to change the whole world is a question I think everybody needs to answer for himself. The artist himself says: “I am not trying to change the world, but when I see a smile up there in the Favelas or down there in Cambodia, in a way I feel like I’ve achieved my goal.”
Be Inspired And…
- Participate in INSIDEOUT! Upload a portrait. Receive a poster. Paste it for the world to see.
- Donate a wall to the project.
- Support the project financially.
- Follow JR and the INSIDEOUT Project on the TEDBlog, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.
An awesome episode of TEDify, a TED-based quest for the most sought-after piece of existential human truth, that most fundamental question: What makes us happy?
Turns out, happiness can be synthesized, but it requires that you unearth all the right elements to ignite the reaction. And we happen to think TED is the
In seven minutes, Ron Gutman reviews a raft of studies about smiling, and reveals some surprising results. Prepare to flex a few facial muscles as you learn more about this evolutionarily contagious behavior.
It’s the last stretch before summer and many of us are getting antsy. We’re eager to be done with it all, but before we can pack up and head home, we have a little mountain of paper and exams we have to traverse first. I know many of my friends have been struggling with extracurriculars taking up most of their time, GPAs they find unsatisfactory, and a mess of other complications that tend to arise as part of life. I saw this video a few days ago. At first I didn’t think much of it; we’ve heard these same messages several times before and for a few of us, we take these ideas into consideration on a daily basis. We appreciate the much-awaited for arrival of blue sky without a rain cloud in sight. We keep our chin up in the face of bad grades and bad happenings, knowing that with the right kind of attitude, we can face anything pretty well. But for many of us, while we’ve heard these ideas before, we tend to forget. We get caught up in the moment and set these thoughts aside for some other day when everything is going right again. Hopefully this video will remind us of a healthier approach to life and maybe this time, these ideas will stay with us. :)
by Uriel
